Ford calls in the hackers

Ford is poised to seek help from the most unlikely of sources to develop what it calls its programmable car - computer hackers.

Ford calls in the hackers

05 February 2012Barry Park

But, rather than recruiting an army of pimply teenagers crouched behind glowing laptop screens, Ford wants serious hackers to help it think up the next killer iPhone-style application that will encourage car owners to buy it for their daily ride.

OpenXC, as the free software is known, is expected to be released to the hacker community in the next few weeks, starting with the digital framework for a future version of the Ford Focus (below).

To help further, Ford has even provided details of the hardware the hackers will use to build the modules, based on a $30 kit available from computer specialty shops.

According to Ford, the software imagines a time when ''your car is as easy to program as your smartphone''.

''A simple start is to take advantage of the GPS antenna on the roof of the car to improve the accuracy of your location-aware application,'' Ford says. ''Or get creative - why not generate a digital painting based on your steering wheel movements during the course of a day and upload it directly to the web.''